


Take It Outside

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [47]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Epic Friendship, F/M, Gen, The 'If You Hurt My Friend' Lecture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:49:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are getting serious between John Watson and Mary Morstan. It's time for Mary's best friend to give this doctor/soldier/blogger The Talk. Later on, John wants to know if Sherlock's going to give the same talk to Mary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take It Outside

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Take it Outside by the Barenaked Ladies.
> 
> The story was prompted by Starlithorizon, who wanted 'the first time John finds out Sherlock totally approves of Mary' and 'Nirupa intimidates John somehow', and the prompts ended up in the same story.

Mary was a terrific dancer, John thought, moving with her on the small floor at the little club. She had a beautiful sway to her full hips, and to that lovely bottom, and more to the point, she had that spark in her eyes, and her smile, and the way she leaned in to ghost those kissable lips against his ear to remark on the song or the club or… anything really. She could be reciting formulas for mixing cement and he’d find her captivating.

John Watson did not know when he had last enjoyed company that wasn’t Sherlock’s this much. Mary made the blood buzz in his veins in almost the same way, and she smelled a lot better – less of chemicals and more of exotic locales.  He pressed his cheek to hers briefly for a surreptitious whiff of her dark, silky hair. Was that weird? Possibly. Well, probably, but she was giggling and her lips were brushing ‘naughty man’ against his ear, so it was all fine, just fine.

He felt the slight nip of her teeth on his earlobe, and _oh god yes_ , it was better than merely fine, this. Mary Morstan was damned near perfect.

The song ended and Mary grinned at him, patted his butt. “Gotta go freshen up, Luscious. Go keep Rupe company till I get back.”

Nirupa. Right. John squeezed Mary’s hand and made it back to the bar where Nirupa, stuck with being gooseberry for the night, was nursing a gin and tonic.

“Want the next dance?” he offered, because he was a gentleman, and because he liked Nirupa. It was hard not to. Intelligent, tall, observant, raven-haired, seeker-of-adventure. John already knew he liked that in a person.

NIrupa dragged her attention away from the middle distance to give John a mild smile. “Thanks, I’ll pass. Mary has declared her intention to monopolise you for the evening.”

“Bit dull for you.” John turned to order drinks for himself and Mary before turning back to Nirupa.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Nirupa was saying. “I like to see Mary enjoying herself, and she likes your company.”

John found himself grinning like an idiot. “I like hers too.”

“Hmm.”

He looked up at her then (up, naturally, because Nirupa was as tall as Sherlock) and considered the manner in which she was considering him.

“It’s getting pretty serious with you two,” said Nirupa.

John didn’t even contemplate denying it. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“She really, really likes you, John.”

And John remembered last night, after dinner, he and Mary taking a long walk in Hyde Park in the starlit hours. Kissing by the Serpentine, and his own voice murmuring _Mary, god, Mary, I am falling in love with you. I am._ And his moment of terror at letting that slip out, _too soon, is it too soon?_ only to hear her soft laugh, to feel her mouth on his in a rain of little kisses _I love you too. Idiot_.

Then they laughed and kissed (and kissed and kissed and kissed).  At some late, dark hour they crept up the stairs of 221b and tumbled into his bed, and later there was _I love you, I love you_ giggle-sigh-breathed into each other’s skin.

She’d left his bed this morning (only this morning!) after tea and toast and what could have been but turned out not to be an awkward encounter with Sherlock over the kettle.

So yes, you could say it was getting pretty serious.

“I really like her too, Nirupa,” John said, then thought it was mealy-mouthed. “More than like her.” Still not good enough, but still too new to feel quite comfortable declaring himself to Mary’s best friend in that way. “I love her.”

Ah well. The truth will out.

Nirupa continued to consider John carefully.

“I like you,” she said at last, in a tone that suggested a lecture was following.

John was surprised that he was surprised. He should have been expecting this.

Nirupa and Mary had been readers of his blog and followers of Sherlock’s work long before the four of them had ever met. To everyone’s relief, the women had turned out to be mature, intelligent, genuinely scientifically curious aficionados of the work – a contrast to the occasionally alarming people who declared themselves the ‘Baker Street Irregulars’. In the months since they’d met at Chingford Plains, Mary and Nirupa had become regular visitors, when they were in London, and good friends. Sherlock even liked their company.  Nirupa was teaching him valuable anthropological detail about London’s immigrant population, for a start.

In those months, it had become clear that Mary and Nirupa had a friendship that was as deep, as strong, as unusual and as enduring as John and Sherlock’s. It was one of the reasons, John thought, that the friendship with all four of them was working so well. They understood each other.

But now it was coming. The If You Hurt My Friend lecture. It should have been a bit ridiculous, really. John Watson was a brave, strong, smart, secure man; a doctor and soldier both. He’d saved lives and taken them and Did Not Put Up With People’s Shit. (Well, Sherlock’s, but Sherlock wasn’t _people_ , and even then only up to a point.)

Yet here John Watson, MD, RAMC, was… meekly awaiting The Lecture.

“I like you a lot, actually,” Nirupa continued, her expression serious, her dark eyes stern, “I think you’re good for her. I haven’t seen her this happy with someone in a very long time. Maybe never this happy. And I’m sure you understand that Mary’s happiness is the most important thing in this world to me.”

John gave a short nod, indicating that yes, he understood, and also that he agreed, though he wasn’t sure Nirupa got that part of the gesture.

“And I know that you’re a soldier, and the nature of your work with Sherlock Holmes,” She waved a hand. “And all that entails. I just want you to know that I know what I’d be dealing with.”

This was getting more interesting, and slightly more alarming, every moment.

“So believe me, John, when I say that if you hurt Mary – if you abuse her trust or misuse her in any way – I will make you sorry.”

He opened his mouth to offer reassurances, but she held up her hand.

“Because I know what the kinds of people you’ve faced,” she said, “I think I should be a bit more specific.”

“Ooookay,” he said, drawing it out, because this really was fascinating. And alarming, definitely, but John, being John, was actually more fascinated the more alarming it got.

“There is a drug – a poison, really – used by a little community in the Amazon basin. It’s used for certain rituals. Properly administered – and I know how to administer it properly, in case you wondered – it will leave you paralysed but conscious for a period of up to four hours. You’d be a bit groggy afterwards for a while, but otherwise unharmed.”

“I see.”

“Not yet you don’t,” Nirupa corrected him, very calmly, “But now you will. If you ever treat Mary badly, I will use this drug on you. No, I’m not telling you how, because if I have to, I don’t want you to know how it’s coming.”

“Fair enough.”

She glared at him, but since he seemed to be taking the whole thing seriously, she continued. “After I have drugged you, I will strip you naked and shave you from head to foot. I will paint your scrotum and penis bright orange – it’s a dye used by the same community, and it stains wonderfully. Not permanently, but for a good many months, which is long enough for my purposes. I might add ‘Bastard’ on your shaved chest or stomach for good measure, if I have the time. Then I will tie you in a vulnerable position to a post in the middle of Hyde Park, probably, or maybe Picaddilly Circus. I’ll see what’s feasible at the time. And leave you there.”

Nirupa paused and lifted an eyebrow at him.

“That’s… quite detailed.”

“Yes.”

John contemplated the posited scenario with due care. His hands on the counter were, he noted, rock steady. This was a serious threat. Nirupa was not angry or deranged. She was just telling it like it is.

“Nirupa,” he said, meeting her steady gaze with his own, “I swear to you. If I ever hurt her, through carelessness or cruelty or… For any reason. If I ever hurt her, I’ll deserve it. Including the ‘Bastard’ epitaph, so make time for it if you have to.”

Each held the other’s solemn gaze for a moment longer, then they nodded. There was a moment where they nearly shook hands on it, but that’s when Mary returned.

“Have you two been planning World War Three in my absence?” she wanted to know, inserting herself in to John’s arms, her back pressed along his chest while she faced Nirupa. That was so John couldn’t see the warning/query in the expression she levelled at her friend.

“Only one of the minor skirmishes,” Nirupa assured her, with a warm and innocent smile.

“A couple of warning shots, really,” John said, less innocently but with a conspiratorial grin at Nirupa over Mary’s shoulder.

Nirupa’s answering grin was distinctly friendly. “I’m going to call it a night,” she said, “I’m tired of chaperoning the two of you, and there’s a lovely woman who’s been giving me the eye at that bar near our flat. So,” She leaned forward to kiss Mary’s cheek, “Have fun. I won’t expect you home.”

“Best not to,” agreed Mary, wriggling her arse surreptiously against John’s crotch, making him tighten his hands around her waist and bury his nose in her hair.

“God, at least wait until I leave,” Nirupa complained mildly.

Adieus were bid. John and Mary returned to the dance floor, and then to Baker Street, where they fondly imagined they were not keeping John’s flatmate awake with their loving explorations and whispered declarations.

(Sherlock would have said that they weren’t; that he’d been awake already and it was an opportunity to complete some non-toxic tests in the kitchen. While wearing a headset. Playing the 1812 Overture. On repeat. Especially the bit with the cannons. Till dawn. He’d have complained bitterly, except the previous night’s… performance… had left John in an exceptionally good mood all day and he’d only laughed when he found that Sherlock had put a diseased kidney in crisper with the celery and later blew up the electric coffee grinder when he used it to grind something that was distinctly not coffee.)

**

Much later the next day – after Mary had again bumped into Sherlock over the morning kettle, and made everyone tea and finally left after a protracted farewell snog with John on the stairs – John looked up from his newspaper to regard Sherlock, busy at the microscope.

“Are you planning on giving Mary The Lecture?”

Sherlock looked up, puzzled. “The…?”

“Only, I got mine from Nirupa last night.”

“Ah. _That_ lecture.”

“It was inventive,” John conceded, “A plausible threat. I might one day need you to rescue my drugged, clean-shaven, bollock-naked, orange-painted arse from the post I’ve been tied to in Hyde Park.”

Sherlock looked immensely interested at the prospect.

“Yeah, yeah,” John said, “I’ll let you take pictures and blood samples.”

Sherlock turned back to the slide he was examining. “Thank you. And no, I will not be giving Mary The Lecture.”

“Oh?” John wasn’t sure if he felt relieved or a little hurt about that.

“It’s unnecessary.” Sherlock did not lift his gaze from the sample. “Mary adores you. There is not a trace of malice in her, particularly when it comes to you. And you are both… honourable people. Any hurts you do each other will be the usual ones that people do – unintentional, mended with an apology, or if you’re too much of an idiot to work that out, an intervention from Nirupa or myself will follow.  I can’t imagine either of you will do anything to each other that requires third party revenge.”

While John was absorbing this unexpected declaration, Sherlock finally looked up. “Of course, if I am wrong – which I rarely am – I can always frame her for a murder. Wouldn’t be too hard. But I have no expectation of needing to take such drastic action.”

John opened his mouth. Closed it again. Opened it again.

“You love her, John. She loves you. And I don’t mean that in that vile, vapid, afternoon telemovie fashion. She’s good for you. Nirupa has said you’re good for Mary.”

_When did you and Nirupa talk about Mary and me?_

“We discuss a good many things,” Sherlock supplied without John voicing the question.

“I…”

“And I wouldn’t let Nirupa drug, shave and paint you and tie you naked to a post in Hyde Park.”

“Not even if I deserved it?”

Sherlock smirked a little. “Well. Perhaps then. I like Mary, John. And stop looking so shocked.”

John closed his mouth. Then he grinned. “Right, then. Coffee?”

Sherlock waved his hand at the new coffee grinder in the kitchen – the one that was not full of pulverised thigh bone and broken machine parts.

John sauntered into the kitchen, his hand squeezing Sherlock’s shoulder on the way past.

He had a good feeling about the future.


End file.
